Exactly. Subjective experiences are only useful to talk about when wanting to know about the state of other minds, not other pens.I want to take this a step further. I suspect we will agree that you can be sure, at least sometimes, that we can be confident the colour people see is the same. Like when we both choose the red pen. But when we prefix the word "subjective", that colour becomes uncertain.
Why not avoid using the word "subjective", and keep your confidence?
That is, perhaps the notion of a subjective colour is a misapplication, and colours are not subjective. — Banno
Most of metaphysics is word play. — Banno
Why is it useful to report what you see? — Harry Hindu
In reporting what you see, you seem to know there are other people with other minds that can perceive what you do, in the way that you do, or else what is the point of reporting what you see? Why use language at all? — Harry Hindu
It's true that I assume the listener understands me, but I don't think he fully understands me. This thread is evidence of that.
You seem to be trying to build an argument with these questions, so I'll keep answering you, but maybe move closer to the point because it's not apparent to me.
It may be the other person doesn't see what I see or know what I know. My expectation is that much of what I do experience I do not fully convey in words and that much of what the listener hears isn't accurate of what I meant. Maybe we have shared experience, maybe not. I'd find it hard to believe that two people would fully share an experience down to the last emotion or perception. — Hanover
Why is it hard to believe that two people wouldn't fully share an experience down the the last emotion or perception if you don't have some knowledge about other people? Does it have to do with how others are shaped and behave in different ways than you? But then there are many similar ways that others are shaped and behave similar to you, too. So, wouldn't it be more likely that while they may not fully share an experience they do share some experiences, and those reasons for those similarities and differences can be pointed out as similarities and differences in our physiology and prior experiences? It doesn't seem as complex as some people here are making it out to be.The noumena isn't known. — Hanover
If that was true, then you could make the blind see by merely stimulating parts of their brains.
— jkop
We're working on it. — Michael
It means that the colour ain't in the head. — jkop
What's so special about neurological activity that causes color? How does a colorless process cause color? How do we know that a robot with cameras for eyes connected to a computer brain that can distinguish between different wavelengths of light isn't experiencing different colors as those distinctions in its working memory? How do we know that any object isn't experiencing color (panpsychism)? What's so special about organisms when they are just another kind of physical object?No it doesn't. That colour experiences require the appropriate neurological activity, which requires neural connections ordinarily formed in response to electrical information from the eyes, does not entail that colours are mind-independent properties of light or a material surface that reflects such light. — Michael
What's so special about neurological activity that causes color? — Harry Hindu
In other words, it isn't known whether color experiences require the appropriate neurological activity..., In other words it is possible that colors ain't just in the head. — Harry Hindu
What is pain?So in other words it isn't known whether pain requires the appropriate neurological activity, and so it is possible that pain just ain't in the head? — Michael
What is pain? — Harry Hindu
The main brain areas that are most consistently activated under painful conditions are the insular cortex and secondary somatosensory cortex, bilaterally. Electrical stimulation of these areas, but not in other candidate brain areas, is able to elicit a painful sensation.
So, wouldn't it be more likely that while they may not fully share an experience they do share some experiences, and those reasons for those similarities and differences can be pointed out as similarities and differences in our physiology and prior experiences? — Harry Hindu
This doesn't answer my question. It just bumps against the hard problem again and we are back where we started.A percept that occurs when there is the appropriate neurological activity, often in response to electrical signals sent from nociceptors.
See for example Role of the Prefrontal Cortex in Pain Processing:
The main brain areas that are most consistently activated under painful conditions are the insular cortex and secondary somatosensory cortex, bilaterally. Electrical stimulation of these areas, but not in other candidate brain areas, is able to elicit a painful sensation. — Michael
It just bumps against the hard problem again — Harry Hindu
How does a colorless process create color? — Harry Hindu
It means that the colour ain't in the head.
— jkop
No it doesn't. — Michael
So colour experiences change when the neural activity in V4 and VO1 changes.
I was speaking of color qua color, not color experiences — NOS4A2
I don’t doubt that you experience the changes in pigment, but it seems to me the changes in pigment are the result of the changes in the object, not some other mind-dependent property. We can test this by mixing paints. It results in a change in color of the paint. — NOS4A2
Colour qua colour is the experience; colour isn't light, isn't atoms reflecting light, and isn't some third mind-independent thing that is neither light nor atoms reflecting light.
It’s not clear what we’re experiencing when we use that sort of language, though, leaving unexplained the question of what color is. It’s impossible for me to understand what experiencing an experience is and what that entails. — NOS4A2
The adjective “red” can only describe a red thing, and it is that thing that absorbs certain wavelengths, and reflect others. There is no reason for me to apply that adjective to any other objects, especially mind-dependent ones. — NOS4A2
You sure are making a lot of knowledge statements about what you know about others' experiences for someone that says
The noumena isn't known. — Harry Hindu
How can I make it to your loved one's grave with a high chance of success (much more than random) when you are describing your internal states of what it is like being in that location and what it was like to get there yourself? — Harry Hindu
Do you never try to convey how you feel to others? If you do then you must have some degree of certainty that they will at least partially understand what you are saying because they can experience the same feelings but in different but similar contexts (they have lost a love one too, just not your loved one). — Harry Hindu
The various languages placed side by side show that with words it is never a question of truth, never a question of adequate expression; otherwise, there would not be so many languages. The "thing in itself" (which is precisely what the pure truth, apart from any of its consequences, would be) is likewise something quite incomprehensible to the creator of language and something not in the least worth striving for. This creator only designates the relations of things to men, and for expressing these relations he lays hold of the boldest metaphors. To begin with, a nerve stimulus is transferred into an image: first metaphor. The image, in turn, is imitated in a sound: second metaphor. And each time there is a complete overleaping of one sphere, right into the middle of an entirely new and different one. One can imagine a man who is totally deaf and has never had a sensation of sound and music. Perhaps such a person will gaze with astonishment at Chladni's sound figures; perhaps he will discover their causes in the vibrations of the string and will now swear that he must know what men mean by "sound". — Friedrich Nietzsche – On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
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